JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It is a name you have probably heard a lot this election season; Tom Leek is one of the Republican candidates for Florida's District 7 Senate seat, which covers portions of St. Johns, Putnam, Flagler and Volusia counties.
Leek is a current representative in Florida's 28th House District. He has been a member of the Florida House since 2016, and he and his wife live in Ormond Beach. He is also the chief legal officer for an insurance brokerage firm.
Leek said part of the reason he is running for Florida Senate is to continue working on solutions to the state's property insurance crisis.
"The next thing that we need to do is we need to do a better job of making sure that those insurance companies are responsive to the consumers, and I think that's where there's a lot of opportunity and things that I hope to address going forward," Leek said.
This race has been covered in controversy since the first attack ad aired against Leek months ago.
The ads are paid for by political committee, The Truth Matters. Several of the ads call Leek 'liberal' and claim he contributed to the state's insurance crisis. Leek called those claims 'crazy.'
“I mean, anybody who's ever seen what I've done would never describe me as liberal. And if you look at the folks who have endorsed me that I've worked with, whether it's Governor DeSantis or Senator Rick Scott…there's no way that any of them would endorse somebody who was liberal. That's just quite frankly fabricated," Leek said.
The group behind the ads is mostly funded by lawyers. The Truth Matters was created by a lawyer who works in the same firm as David Shoar, Leek's opponent in this race.
First Coast News reached out to The Truth Matters for more information on why they are so against Leek, but no one has responded. Leek believes he is being targeted because of the tort reform the legislature passed last year.
"This is the result of the fact that we took on tort reform and we beat back some of the frivolous lawsuits and now they're grasping for relevancy, and they're willing to spend anything it takes to buy a seat in the Florida Senate," Leek said.
Both sides of these attacks have already raised millions of dollars for this race, making it one of the most expensive campaigns in Florida's history.
Despite the attacks, Leek still plans to be out in the district over the next week making his final push to voters ahead of primary election day.
"We put in the work the right way. Every day we get up, we go out, we meet the people where we are, we knock on doors, we go to events and we're doing everything that you're supposed to do to win a race like this," Leek said.
First Coast News also spoke with David Shoar and Gerry James, the two other Republicans running for the District 7 seat.